Mirror Mirror 3: Someone to watch over you

Hi, everyone. As you know, here at The Blank Page, we like to try and keep our offerings to a fairly high standard. Sadly, Chris had a pretty bad day yesterday. So bad, in fact, that he’s now claiming he isn’t employed by an actual company but that he’s accidentally become involved in a masochistic experiment looking into the boundaries of human will. Seeing as he needs to keep that job for now, we thought it was best to keep him away from the keyboard this week. That's why we moved him into the lounge and gave him a pile of comics to catch up on. In the meantime, we've looked out into the multiverse to see if we couldn’t find another Christopher Long who would talk to us. We’ve managed to get hold of the Christopher from Universe 846 A U D Gamma. He was happy to answer a few questions for your entertainment today:

Long Words: Hi there, Christopher. Thanks for taking the time sit down and chat with us.

Christopher Long: Not a problem. Happy to be here.

LW: We’d like to start by asking you about your…

CL: Aren’t you going to say hello to everyone else?

LW: Everyone else?

CL: Sure, everyone who’s listening in.

LW: Are we on speaker phone?

CL: No, of course not. No one uses their phones anymore.

LW: Right.

CL: Everyone knows all the smart phones are plotting against us. No, I’m talking about the radio in my teeth.

LW: The….the radios in your teeth?

CL: I’m with a very good dentist, so I have some pretty good ones. They get brilliant reception no matter where I am.

LW: Okay.

CL: Well, you know how it is. The radios in your teeth are like taxes. No one really likes to think about them, but they’re not going away. Besides, they’re far better than the brain scans.

LW: Brain scans. Aren’t you well?

CL: Oh, I’m fine. I’m talking about the satellites. They’re always up there, looking for another non-conforming brain to scan.

LW: Oh. I see.

CL: It’s okay. You can get some very fetching tin hats to keep them out of your brain, but the radios in the teeth are unavoidable. They’re put there from birth.

LW: So…just to be clear, your government put radios in your teeth and scan your brains from satellites?

CL: It’s the price of peace. Well, that and the yearly sacrifices to the people who in The Hollow Earth.

LW: You have people living underground?

CL: We think they’re people. We hear them more than see them. They’re pretty harmless really. Just, you know, don’t dig too deep and send a few of the innocent and curious their way every year. The rest of the time, The One Government keeps us safe. They tell us everything they’re doing to us. There are no conspiracies. It’s all out in the open. It’s a far easier way to live.

LW: Wow. So, it’s like you’re living in The X Files.

CL: Oh, you have that in your universe?

LW: Sure. It’s a great show.

CL: Tell me about it. It’s my favourite documentary. I often sit down to watch it with my family and the government spooks who peer through our windows to make sure we’re still us. They seem to enjoy it. They always howl when someone dies.

LW: I mean, that sounds like quite a busy life. How do you get time to write?

CL: Write? You mean, like writing things down? No one does that here.

LW: You don’t write?

CL: Everything can be used against you here. My last neighbours were loaded into a government van because of a shopping list. I write nothing down. Not unless I go to the police and write in front of them. That way, they can sign it.

LW: So, you don’t write stories?

CL: You can check through the daily reports from the microchips under my skin if you don’t believe me.

CL: We tend to stay away from the computer in the house, unless it starts demanding our respect and faith again.

LW: I see.

CL: Besides, everything auto-redacts over here.

LW: So, what do you do for fun?

CL: Well, my kids are just into cattle mutilations. That takes up a lot of time.

LW: Your children mutilate cattle?

CL: No, no. Nothing like that.

LW: I did wonder.

CL: No, I take them cattle mutilation spotting. Little Lee Harvey can find them before we get out the car sometimes. He’s becoming quite the expert. He can recognise patterns in the wounds and name which agent killed a cow with just a cursory exam.

LW: That sounds…impressive. Good for him.

CL: Yeah, it just a shame his sister isn’t so keen. Although Diana can design a crop circle at the drop of a tin foil hat.

LW: Your daughter designs crop circles?

CL: Sure. How else do the UFOS know where to land? All those glass pyramids aren’t going to build themselves.

LW: And, um, how about your wife? What’s she into?

CL: Oh, I’ve not seen her in years. Not since she went on that Mothman trail to Hanging Rock.

LW: Have you tried to find her?

CL: No, there’s no point. The woods around there are teeming with Sasquatch and, besides, she sends me messages through the TV static most nights before I go to bed, ready for my probing.

LW: Your probing?

CL: It’s worse than it sounds. You get Nectar points for every visit. Last year, I paid for Christmas with probing alone.

LW: But don’t the kids miss their mother?

CL: Not really. I mean, they never really bonded with her after their pods appeared in our garden. Besides, with their psychic link getting stronger, it’s not like they really talk a lot. Most days they just come downstairs and, before I know it, we’re back at the toy shop again and I’m treating them to something. The little scamps.

We’d like to thank this particular parallel Christopher for talking to us. We’d also like to thank for him for offering to send us over some fascinating literature on the benefits of owning a gun that fires magic bullets. Sadly, he had to dash off when the crystal skull in his dining room wall began demanding his presence. Remember, you can post your comments below and that reviews of our own Christopher’s books on Amazon, Goodreads or any blog or forum are always welcome. Have a good weekend and remember to clean your teeth. Apparently it helps improve the signal quality.